For the past 10 days I’ve gone to the gym everyday.
Going to the gym everyday, and going to classes that challenge me everyday is part of a 21-day challenge I created a few months back in the moment when I heard me putting myself second to my business, my clients and business development.
I didn’t believe I could maintain a rigorous fitness schedule while building a business.
When I heard myself say to someone, “My business comes first,” I felt a tear fill my eye.
This gaping disconnect between what I believe so fervently, that health and vitality are a holistic endeavor, that we create our best selves when we are aligned in all areas of life … and how I was living, I knew I had to recommit to my daily rituals.
I chose what Charles Duhigg describes in The Power of Habit, as a keystone habit to revitalize my daily rituals. A keystone habit is that small, seemingly benign habit, yet creates the foundation for all other habits to flourish. I chose journaling as my keystone habit, three, free-writing pages every morning for 21-days because journaling always had a way of bringing me back to me.
I began to feel so much clarity and peace of mind, creativity and groundedness from simply journaling every morning that I decided to challenge myself for 21-days with my meditation practice too, which also had become hit or miss.
Since meditation is, well, so meditative, this might sound crazy, but I began to feel on fire! Excitement and adrenaline were running through my veins … for no apparent reason!
Duhigg, says, “Habits are so powerful. They create neurological cravings.”
Indeed. I was literally getting high by simply renewing my daily commitments to me, which ironically felt really hard to do initially!
This is when my idea to create “The 21-Day Project” crystallized.
My renewed commitment to me and my daily habits hit me like a ton of bricks, like this IS the created life! This IS how I create my life by my design, by one, what-I-really-want habit at a time! I declared somewhere amidst my journaling and meditation practice that I would create a new healthy habit every 21-days for one year and added fitness as my new, next challenge.
Amidst all this, I began to think newly about my once rock-solid, and now recommitted daily rituals, and reflected on a quote by George Bernard Shaw I’ve had hanging in my home for years,
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
Creating yourself? Hmm.
In the spirit of taking control over the skills I can develop, I’m out to create the whole shape of my life, by my design, with my year-long 21-Day Project.
What started as a challenge to get back to the gym has turned into a fun game of ‘anything’s possible,’ and I believe you too can do anything for 21 days!
The sky’s the limit, really.
Leave a comment below with your commitment for the next 21 days — and let’s hold each other accountable!
I promise you this, you’ll be so surprised and delighted by how quickly you create momentum!
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